


for dust thou art

by Mothervvoid



Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Future Fic, Gen, Ghosts, POV Second Person, SMP Earth - Freeform, The Antarctic Empire, hey kids lets go explore some ruins
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-05
Updated: 2021-02-05
Packaged: 2021-03-17 02:02:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29217648
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mothervvoid/pseuds/Mothervvoid
Summary: The Antarctic Empire's civilization fell long ago, it's cities in ashes and it's kingdom fallen to dust. The ruins are precarious and no one dares trod to the arctic to pick them over. No one, that is, except for you.The ruins of an empire beckon at your mind like the claws of a beast.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 28





	for dust thou art

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this for fun bc i thought it would be cool to explore the antarctic empire after it fell.

You've heard the stories. When this world was new and the borders of warring nations were not as set in stone, great empires rose and fell; sometimes in the span of days. Whole nations and groups of people surging forward in blind attempts at domination, falling to one and other in great battles that fertilized the earth for those who came after them. The greatest of all of them, however, was spoken of in reverent whispers. 

The Antarctic Empire. It rose in hours and expanded in days, only seeming to grow more vast and powerful as it devoured the land whole. Until it stopped, diminished. Retreated back to the shores of its' icy namesake to bide its' time. The long and sordid history of the empire unspooled in rumors and old wives' tales about cursed leadership that never died and power without parallel. Their monarch eventually fell, but the history was muddled. There was no body. Your mother swore up and down that he still haunts the halls of Port-aux-Francais, a maddened and fallen leader. 

He would have to be mad, wouldn't he? Who rules a wasteland? Who rules where there is no one to govern, no one to care? And when he finally unspooled his kingdom across the map, who gives it all up?

Was it not challenging enough?

The ruins of a barren empire call to you. They've called for you since your youth, and you have longed to plunge into their depths, explore the cursed place where even the powerful do not tread. Where there are only ghosts of a lost era.

Your mother grows angry when you try to leave. You're her only child, her only blood. _Is it not challenging enough? Is life not challenging enough for you, my child, that you would throw yourself into the wilderness?_

"No, it is not."

...

The space between the empire and your homeland is deep, and vast. By boat or by plane, the journey is not a fast one, but you are nothing if not persistent. You've been that way since your childhood, driven and headstrong. You were too stubborn to give up, to driven to consider failure.

And when your feet touch the ice for the first time, there are stars in your eyes and snow in your hair. Stars in the sky that reflect off the ice, a splattered canvas paints the background for the aurora borealis that blooms overhead. If you reached up far enough, you might just be able to touch them, smudge the broad strokes that Atlas had used to paint the firmament. 

No time for that now, though. Your hands shake, and the imperial palace looms ahead in all of its' terrible glory. The powerful do not come here. The daring do not come here. The curious do not come here. Only you, dauntless you; stubborn and curious and powerful combined, you are everyone and no one at once, you who dare to stalk the halls of the palace as the emperor once did. History bows before you, its' first witness.

And you have come to witness it all.

...

You start at the top, climbing the massive staircase towards the topmost floor. As you walk, tattered banners flutter in the breeze, blue-powder blue-white. They decay and fray at the ends, come apart in your fingers as you try to run them through your hands on your journey upwards.

Up you go to your ghosts, to the aurora borealis, to Atlas who turns and paints the heavens. Up into a masterpiece, whose floors are blue-white-powder blue. 

Your sneakers squeak against the cracked tile as you take in the colossal ruin. 

Imperial balls must have been held here at the top, where heaven meets the sky. Women and men circling each other, live bands would have played here; a palimpsest of unheard music echoes off of the crumbling walls, the polyphonic rhythm of dancer's feet rumbles through the unmoving stone floors. Style-upon-style, dance-upon-dance. Or perhaps just one or two dancers, swaying to the music in the center. And then no one at all, everything crumbling to dust. 

Then down you plunge once more to the bottom floors, through hallways filled with faded artwork of a ruler whose face you don't recognize. Past rooms for dignitaries and allies whose names are long forgotten. Past a nursery with big open windows, motes of dust peacefully floating past a mobile full of rotten velvet stars and planets. Into libraries packed with books that fell apart in your hands, written history caving into dust between your fingertips. 

And dogs, dozens and dozens of white fluffy dogs. They were hard to spot among parts of the ruins, parts where the roof or wall or window had given way to time and filled the area with snow. They don't bother you, they don't approach. They leave you be and continue their own little haunting, keeping the unseen ghosts company as you wander their long-forgotten halls.

And in one snow-covered room, you find the truth to every rumor ever whispered in your ear in your youth. As you crouch down to examine this-that-or-the other, a plaque catches your eye. 

Partially covered in snow, enough that all but a bit of black lettering is covered, is an old plaque a few inches off of the floor. You gently scrape the snow and frost from its' face, having learned your lesson with the books earlier, and prayed that you could read whatever was written on its' surface.

_Here lies Technoblade_

You are standing atop a grave.

Your mother had told you it was disrespectful to stand on graves, the dead don't appreciate being stood upon. Yet here you crouch upon the bones of a man who ruled everything and nothing at once. 

And he _was_ bones, he had to be by now, right? When it was all said and done, did he lower himself into the ground and wait? Or did someone come and bury him? There is only so much this grave and this massive wreck could tell you; walls whispering and floors echoing, speaking in tongues and voices you'll never understand. 

No one is coming to tell you this story. You would have to piece it together, piece by fragmented piece. But the more you look, the more the palace fades, falling apart and turning to dirt in your hands and beneath your feet. History wants to die, wants to be forgotten and left alone to lie.

Is this why this place lay half-buried and abandoned? This whole palace is a tomb for one man and his many ghosts, thrumming as if it were alive. Ghosts and a spectre and their many, many dogs; their bloodied history a decaying corpse in and of itself.

You stand and trudge out through the foyer, unsatisfied by your exploration. The day has overtaken the night, sunlight sliding over the ice and blinding white of the artic wilderness as the rosy-fingered dawn comes to caress your face. 

As you turn your face to keep the light from stinging your eyes, you catch something on the opposing horizon. A figure, too far away to make out anything distinct. It stands there, watching.

Waiting.

You break into a run, and you do not look back.


End file.
